The Mad Giant (Shioni of Sheba Book 3) Read online

  As Shioni ducked beneath the spindly, spiky branches of an acacia tree overhanging the trail, Zi shouted up to her, “He’s crazy!”

  “I know, Zi.”

  “So we’re following him… why?” The Fiuri had to scream to make herself heard above the eye-tearing buffeting of the wind. “Because you prefer charging into trouble, as opposed to your usual stroll?”

  Shioni’s uneasy laughter was snatched away in a gasp as Thunder extended his stride into his full racing gallop. Incredible, she thought. He had greater speed still? His blood must be boiling at that challenge–from a mere human! The picture foremost in his mind was less than flattering.

  But even the proud Arabian would have to admit that Talaku was in superb condition. Superhuman condition, Shioni corrected herself with a sardonic smile, for how else could a man hold his own against a horse in a straight race? His enormous, bounding strides were all about power; power he had in abundance, thanks to an eight-foot-plus frame all bound up in ropy muscle, fuelled by a gigantic appetite that could demolish a whole goat at a sitting and pour that nourishment directly into his extraordinary growth and girth. He must burn it all–somehow!

  Ahead of her, Talaku thundered through a family of gazelle, sending them bounding and darting in all directions, and then, swerving into the river shallows for a few steps inundated in silvery spray, he scattered a flock of peaceably-feeding crowned cranes to the four winds. Their raucous honks of alarm echoed between the cliffs.

  Shioni loved all the riverine wildlife, and hated scaring the animals in this way!

  If Talaku resembled a racing rhino rumbling along, Thunder was a falcon in flight. He had the advantage of four legs as opposed to two, but Talaku had not tarried to make a fair start. They were over the halfway point in their race now, and she sensed the giant might be tiring after his prodigious opening burst. Thunder’s hooves were still striking the iron-hard ground with rattletrap speed. She leaned right out along his neck, making herself as small as possible, letting her instincts meld her body with the flow of his charge. On a whimsy she sent him an image of a flying horse she had seen on one of Annakiya’s scrolls, which described legends of ancient Greece.

  Thunder tossed his head with an approving whinny.

  A peculiar thing happened just then, as she held that image of the flying horse lightly in the forefront of her mind. Her ears, attuned to the rhythmic drumming of Thunder’s hooves over earth, rock and water, suddenly told her they were hearing nothing of the sort. It had to be the wind wittering in her ears. She tried to pop her eardrums by lowering her jaw, and glanced down at the hooves flying beneath her precarious perch–but it was impossible, at that tremendous speed, to ascertain if she was simply imagining the horse was no longer quite touching the ground, according to her whimsy. She glanced up again. Whatever the case, one thing was clear: they were suddenly overhauling Talaku as though he had paused in the shade for an afternoon doze.

  A hundred paces from the juniper tree, Thunder thrust his nose ahead of the astonished giant. The horse let out a shrill whinny of exultation. Shioni followed suit with a war-whoop as they slowed up past the crooked juniper, just a couple of paces ahead of Talaku but clearly the winners.

  “You stinking little cheat!”

  Stung, Shioni whirled at the roar from behind her. She was about to shout back, when Thunder reared unexpectedly. She heard a shout, “The ferengi!” Something heavy struck the small of her back, lifting her clean out of the saddle. She landed flat on her back. Every last gasp of breath exploded out of her lungs. Next she knew, she was lying face-up to the white-hot sky. A Wasabi warrior with a face painted in a hyena’s maniacal grin loomed over her, his spear raised in the act of pinning her to the ground.

  Even though her brain was screaming the need to roll aside, her body refused to respond. She was too slow. Everything was too slow. Talaku was bellowing as his great double-bladed war axe, which he called Siltam, flared blindingly in the late afternoon sunshine. His cries struck her ears as long, drawn-out groans. The axe hung mid-air as if suspended on strings. A hoof swirled into her peripheral vision and crashed ever so slowly into the Wasabi’s grinning face. Thunder! She noticed–surprised in some faraway part of her mind at the detail–how his metal horseshoe smashed the man’s cheek, the precise angle at which the warrior’s head snapped aside, how his body twirled in a floppy half-turn before thudding face-down beside her. Red clay dust drifted gently upward from the area of impact.

  Talaku’s axe sliced a comet trail through the dust and drifting pollens, which glittered as if swarms of fireflies were spiralling above her head. Thunder’s mane resembled a swirling silken curtain as he spun with a dancer’s poise, hooves flying in a deadly ballet amongst the crowding Wasabi warriors.

  Every detail she perceived seemed suffused with an unearthly beauty.

  Was she dying?

  But then the world roared back into her senses, a deluge of chaotic impressions: a din of stamping hooves, men bellowing like cattle, a full-throated roaring from the giant mixed with Thunder’s furious screams, dust being kicked up to obscure the battle scene in a weird, bloody half-light. And she lay helpless amidst it all.

  Lungs burning; heaving, hacking and coughing, a whistling through her airways; she couldn’t breathe or even cry out for help as she wanted to.

  Silence fell.

  A hand cupped her head, engulfing it from ear to ear. “Easy does it. You hurt?” She tried to speak, but her throat felt as if it had been scratched by claws. “Relax. Take slow breaths and it’ll come back, I promise.”

  Precious air finally seeped into her lungs and her panic ebbed away. Shioni was able to croak, “No. Not hurt... much.”

  “It’s a horrid feeling. But it’ll pass.”

  Talaku helped her to her feet. She ached more from her neck to her waist than if her weapons-master had pummelled her at staves, which was her regular lot during training. A few extra bruises? They would find plenty of company on her body! Dusting off her tunic, Shioni surveyed the wreckage, averting her gaze from all the bodies. So many dead bodies! For the first time in her life, she thought, she understood something of what the priests must mean when they talked about hell.

  Clapping her hands to her mouth was no aid. Shioni succeeded only in catching what remained of her breakfast. She spat and wiped her mouth. “I’m sorry, Talaku. I’m not used to this.”

  A cloth landed at her feet. “Clean yourself up. I also… well, I vomited the first time after I killed a man.”

  Her eyes jumped back to the giant. Guardedly.

  “The rest of those Wasabi dogs fled,” he was saying. “We must have run straight into their camp. And–will you stop looking at me like that? I’m–well, I’m normal now.”

  Shioni fell to examining her toes, thinking hard. Normal, yes, but for how long? General Getu had once tangled with dragons. They burned him and bit off his left arm. Five years later, Getu’s son Talaku was born, somehow tainted by the dragon venom left in his father’s body. At least, that was Getu’s explanation for Talaku’s gigantic stature. What might dragon venom do to a man? She worried her lower lip between her teeth. Getu had warned her Talaku was becoming dangerous and unpredictable. He had just torn an entire troop of Wasabi warriors to shreds–seasoned warriors who knew which end of a spear was for stabbing with. Now his madness was multiplying too!

  “I’m sorry I led you into danger,” the giant added quietly. He misunderstood her silence, she realised. “I had no idea the Wasabi were here, so close to the castle. Your horse is a real fighter–is he trained for battle?”

  “He says he is,” Shioni confirmed.

  “You’re still talking to animals?” Talaku cleaned Siltam on a dead Wasabi warrior’s clothes.

  “Quite the freak, aren’t I?”

  His head jerked up as though slapped by her wry response, and his gaze burned darkly at her. “You think you’re a freak?”

  Despite her heart leaping into her throat, Shioni tried to meet hi
s fury levelly. “Sure, I don’t know too many giants, Talaku. How many blonde-haired, green-eyed ferengi slaves do you know?”

  Ah, the favourite insult of her fellow slaves, leaving a taste akin to bitter aloes in her mouth, Shioni thought. A ferengi was a foreigner, a stranger, someone different. In her experience, someone who would never fit in. One to be bullied. No amount of sunshine would turn her skin as brown as a Sheban’s, she had discovered. Children from the villages around the castle sometimes ran from her in fright. Others called her names, or just threw stones. It was all too easy to let the grief flood into her eyes and she let Talaku have every drop of hurt she could muster.

  This time it was the giant who dropped his gaze. Apparently lost in thought, he sheathed Siltam into a leather holster strapped across his back and heaved an almighty sigh.

  She should put bitterness behind her, Shioni told herself, as Mama Nomuula had told her. It would only eat her up like the dry rot that could eat a tree from the inside, destroying it over a period of years. Many people treated her just as one of them. Most people! Some even loved her. Why could she not see that and forget the few bad mangoes in the barrel?

  Shioni let her own sigh reply to Talaku’s. “We’re a fine pair, aren’t we?”

  Talaku straightened up with a laugh. “I forget you’re just a half-grown kid sometimes, Shioni. You keep me sane. So, you won the race. But you cheated. You must have. I haven’t been beaten by a horse in over two years.”

  Shioni flushed hotly and glared up at him, hands on hips. “I’m no cheat! Besides, Thunder isn’t just any horse–he’s an Arabian, and the fastest animal on four legs!”

  Talaku’s expression seemed to be saying ‘there’s fast and there’s fast!’ He clearly didn’t believe her, not a word. “Apart from a cheetah,” the giant noted. “Cheetah, cheater. Hmm.”

  Shioni noticed that her head was only just above the level of his belly button, so glaring up at him felt ridiculous, as though his sheer immensity had diminished her to the size of a five-year-old child. Well, she was eleven, according to the record of her ownership, wasn’t she? Although the records for slaves were notoriously inaccurate. Warriors and nobility could trace their ancestors for ten generations, but slaves? No chance. About as likely as an elephant flying to the moon, she thought.

  And she was half a head taller than Princess Annakiya already–an ungainly, graceless foil for her supremely graceful friend, who made looking and behaving as a princess ought to seem so blasted effortless…

  Thunder pushed his nose insistently into Shioni’s hand. He sent her a picture of Wasabi warriors slipping away among the trees.

  “So,” she said, mentally throwing her resentful thoughts out for the hyenas to breakfast on, “you let a few Wasabi escape. Where do you think they went?”

  “Aren’t you afraid of the mad giant?”

  His whisper hung as a fragile crystal between them. Shioni was acutely aware of the danger of shattering their developing understanding.

  “Yes. A little.” She glanced down at Zi, who had kept silent throughout their conversation, and then back up at Talaku. “But he’s the same man who pulled me up a cliff by my hair and saved my life.” Shioni forced out a soft laugh. “Besides, I carry the claw marks of a wild lion on my shoulder and live to tell the tale. You’re not so scary compared to that.”

  Talaku’s snort of amusement reminded her of a bull elephant, knee-deep in the river, shooting a trunkful of water over his back in play. “Come on, Shioni. Let’s go find where the Wasabi went in such a hurry.”

  Chapter 3: Tracking the Wasabi

  “He’s not so scary?” Zi squeaked. “Shioni, are you mad? Have you forgotten how the lion tore your shoulder apart? What planet do you live on?”

  Shioni glanced up from the trail, distracted by her question. “Hakim Isoke did give Annakiya a lesson about the planets, but I don’t really remember–”

  “No, you silly baboon! I meant the mad–!”

  “Hush!” Talaku hissed behind them.

  The afternoon air slept beneath the pungent juniper trees, undisturbed by the chirruping of crickets, the twittering of birds, or even the slightest breath of wind. The heat made her clothes stick to her skin. The juniper forest was strangely still. Shioni wondered what it might be waiting for, or what might have frightened the animals into hiding.

  She focussed again on the faint trail left by the fleeing Wasabi. Talaku was right. The enemy warriors might yet be waiting in ambush, concealed somewhere amidst the thicket, or they might have fled entirely. But to where? Somewhere ahead lay the sheer, thousand-foot-tall basalt cliffs that so spectacularly framed the valley above and below Castle Asmat. The Sheban warriors had scouted the ridges many times to identify any trails that could be used by an enemy–and there were precious few. The castle’s location had been carefully chosen by an unknown, ancient king or chief. It could not be easily flanked or surrounded.

  So… a secret trail? Shioni scanned the ground ahead with care. After fleeing blindly for a few minutes, she deduced from the spoor, the Wasabi must have calmed down and organised themselves. Twice, she identified signs that told her their warriors had carefully concealed the marks of their passage–a leaf not quite returned to its prior position, the stem of a plant which had been bent and bruised, but then bent upright again. Here again, Azurelle pointed out a thread of clothing snagged on a branch. They were headed for the cliffs. For certain.

  Kalcha’s oversized pet hyenas… and now a troop of Wasabi warriors… General Getu was not going to receive this news well. Oh no. And she would be the one to enflame his wrath. At least it wasn’t her fault–for a change!

  Young junipers had mixed with old to create a shaded, leafy green underworld that they drifted through like leaves floating silently upon a zephyr. The old trees were fifty or more feet tall, and around their feet the younger growth jostled for a share of the sunlight, especially where one of the forest giants had fallen. Such as this one right before her nose. Shioni paused. She raised her hand and heard the giant hesitate behind her. What was this? Something odd… she glanced back over her shoulder.

  Talaku signed ‘what’? Shioni patted the air in the hunters’ speech she had been learning as part of her training: ‘hold on’. Pointed at her nose. She smelled freshly turned earth somewhere nearby. That was what had kindled her danger-sense. The giant nodded. He must smell it too. Shioni wondered suddenly if his senses were developing at the same exceptional rate as his frame. The giant’s reaction speed was already amazing–but then, hadn’t she recently knocked down a speeding arrow destined for Princess Annakiya’s head? How different did that make her from the giant?

  Clearly, something weird was happening to her. What if she too started growing madly… or just growing mad?

  Biting the inside of her cheek as hard as she could bear, Shioni watched Talaku choose a fallen branch. Holding it in his right hand, he stretched out his long arm and poked the ground ahead of them. Nothing. He stepped forward, repeating the action. Again… and the ground cover moved. Another firm prod and a section easily large enough to swallow her for breakfast, caved in suddenly.

  He grinned and mimed a set of sharp stakes within a pit. ‘Go around,’ he gestured, indicating a faint path to the right.

  Shioni peered into the pit in passing. Ouch! The bottom bristled with sharpened stakes–anyone who fell in would have a most unpleasant landing. She rubbed the gooseflesh on her neck. What were the Wasabi hiding?

  “Stop!” squeaked Azurelle. Talaku was moving toward the fallen tree.

  Too late. His giant foot snagged a concealed rope. A great log all set with spikes came whooshing through the trees–but the Fiuri’s call had given him enough time to react. Talaku sprang aside in a huge bound no ordinary man could have made, and for his trouble, received but a glancing blow upon his shoulder as the log crashed down into the bushes.

  The giant grunted something curt and probably rather rude beneath his beard.

  Moving wit
h even greater caution now, Talaku and Shioni skirted the fallen tree. They could make out the dark, sheer cliff face through the thinning foliage. They stepped clear of the treeline and looked warily about.

  Shioni’s attention immediately fixed on a bridge, not a stone’s throw to her right hand, which spanned a deep gully. The gully’s sides appeared to have been carved smooth–in places, weathered chisel marks were picked out by the angle of the lowering afternoon sun. The bridge pointed straight at a jagged black hole in the cliff; clearly the mouth of a cave or a tunnel leading somewhere beneath the ridge. Her eyes flicked back to the bridge. It was in excellent condition, blocks of dressed stone seamlessly fitted together by master builders… remarkable, and so bizarrely out of place that she did not trust it for an instant.

  Talaku found his voice first. “Right through the mountain,” he said, laying one huge paw upon his axe as though to assure himself it was still sheathed upon his back. “This goes right through or I’m a monkey’s uncle.”

  “They’ve gone in, haven’t they?”

  “Yes, Zi.”

  “Look,” Azurelle pointed, her voice rising with excitement. “Isn’t that similar to the stele you found, Shioni–the one by the Mesheha River?”

  Following the Fiuri’s quivering finger to its target, Shioni saw that at the entrance of the cave, a three-sided stone column had been carved out of the living rock. The fourth side was the mountain itself. Zi was right. Apparently identical to the stele they had discovered alongside the Mesheha, it was covered in lettering, and about fifteen feet above ground level she noticed the imprint of a hand so gigantic that not even Talaku’s paw could have filled it. Yet? She should keep that thought private… but what a discovery! Annakiya would be agog. She would be down here faster than a sparrowhawk. Did this mean the Wasabi had their own tunnel through the mountains? Had they just averted a surprise attack on Castle Asmat? Or were those warriors just a scouting party?

  And the Sheban scouts had missed this–how? Getu would not be angry. He would be livid. She could just picture his face darkening, his throat swelling with words to scorch and blister even a seasoned warrior…